Current players can email a Starter Edition key to their friends from within the game. The new player and the veteran will enjoy exclusive benefits for up to 90 days while adventuring together. They can summon each other to their location. Furthermore, they'll earn experience at triple the normal rate as long as the two characters are in the same party, within 4 levels of each other, and below level 85. For every two levels that the recruit character earns, they can grant a level to a lower-level character owned by the veteran player. The net effect of these bonuses is that it's as easy as possible for these friends to quest together.

The veteran player will receive other rewards if the new player decides to subscriber. If the recruit purchases a month of WoW game time, the recruiter will earn a free month of WoW. If they purchase two months of game time, the recruiter can choose one of the rewards from this list:

Emerald Hippogryph

Heart of the Nightwing

X-53 Touring Rocket

Swift Zhevra

Golden Pig

Silver Pig

Jade Tiger

Zipao Tiger

The first four items are mounts, while the last four are companion pets. Heart of the Nightwing, X-53 Touring Rocket and Swift Zhevra were introduced for Recruit A Friend in years past. The Emerald Hippogryph is a never-before-seen reward created especially for this promotion.

Should the recruiter find another friend to sign up for two months, they'll be able to choose another reward from the list. This gives players incentive to keep enlisting friends for WoW. I imagine it'll also inspire a few diehards to sign up for multiple subscriptions so they can "recruit" themselves and get all the rewards.

There's been a lot of speculation over whether WoW will eventually go free-to-pay. However, Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime said that they'd rather keep the subscriptions in place and focus on developing features to make the game more approachable for newcomers. This program is one of those features.

The enhanced leveling from Recruit a Friend should help players get ready for Warlords of Draenor, a new expansion pack offering content for level 90-100 characters. Even if you're not 90 by Draenor's launch, though, don't worry. You'll get a free boost to level 90 for one character by purchasing the expansion.